reapplying after redundancy

hi hope someone can help
my position at work is being made redundant. i have been told by management that i can take the redundancy or be demoted with pay being frozen for 1 year. management have said if i take the redundancy i cannot reapply for a position with the company again for 6 months due to legal/tax reasons. is this right?

Well it's up to them if they don't want to consider applications from redundant employees for a period of 6 months. If it's not compulsory redundancy then they can put conditions on offering voluntary redundancy.

In terms of legal issues they might be seeking to avoid any claim by either yourself or by HMRC that the redundancy wasn't genuine. Redundancy money is usually tax-free and HMRC would want tax on it if the redundancy wasn't genuine and it wasn't really a termination payment.